


He Remains A Shadow

by FullMetamorphosis



Category: Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic
Genre: Abuse, Character Reflection, Memory, Mental Illness, Other, Outbursts, PTSD, Reflection, Trauma, Vignette, a neverending battle
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-10
Updated: 2017-12-10
Packaged: 2019-02-13 05:49:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12977397
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FullMetamorphosis/pseuds/FullMetamorphosis
Summary: He doesn't really die. He just becomes a shadow in your head.





	He Remains A Shadow

**Author's Note:**

> Short bit I got inspired to write while I was out and about today. Focuses on the aftermath of defeating Vitiate/Valkorion in KOTET. No mention of the flashpoints. Just an analysis of the final decaying.
> 
> Will you let him remain?
> 
> \- consort-to-the-emperor (tumblr)

Vitiate never really leaves. You learned that lesson early on, but it applies even now, past the years of carbonite, past the wars, past the destruction of Zakuul. Vitiate’s power never leaves. You just learn to face what remains.

 

Even when the Emperor appeared defeated first. Even when the Emperor returned to Yavin and Ziost. Even when you found the Emperor in a new untamed space. For as reviled as he is, Vitiate truly is one of the most powerful entities in the galaxy. He is both revered and feared in the same pass of his name, and even in the echos of your own mind.

 

To think he’d fall simply because you’d defeated his persona of Valkorion was a mistake, for he still lingers.

 

He’s too weak to do anything but hide in the shadows of your mind. He no longer has the power to take you over; he no longer can create a form that can harass you in your waking state. No; he’s but a shadow of himself, a wisp of darkness you remember faintly with a douse of cold-water fear of what he’d been capable of before, what you’d started to stare down and later defeated into this state. He is tiny, he is powerless, but that does not mean he cannot create a reaction, or be the cause to an effect.

 

You can feel him, too. You can feel what he does. With every outburst you struggle to contain, with every angry thought you have of him, with all the resentment of your five missing years frozen away in some dark treasury waiting to be freed. He’s there. He’s like a taunting memory, like the traumatic final enemies of your youth. He  _ is _ trauma, he  _ is _ grief, and though he can no longer cause it himself, he lingers, and he reminds.

 

You think of his incarnation as Valkorion and the damage he did to his children and his wife, because you recognize that he was an abuser, and that’s why you stopped listening to him after time. You think of Thexan as denial, Arcann as anger, Senya as bargaining. Vaylin was despair.  _ Is _ despair, now, locked up within the Alliance’s dungeons, still mad and still seething even as she’s visited by you and your advisors and the best counselors and psychiatrists the galaxy has. She wallows in the remnants of her father,  _ oh _ , she  _ suffers _ so beautifully, you think as you watch her. She chokes on her own venom against her parentage, she throws herself against the bars and walls of her cells as if she can purge him from her body. She and her siblings and her mother are the cycles of grief, all neatly packaged into a neat little unit they called a “family”.

 

So then why, when he is not your father, was never related to you, does he haunt you?

 

Even for as light as you can be, he remains, an ever-vigilant watcher. And for as dark as you are, he amplifies it, trying to convince you to sink deeper, darker, further into the corruption you’ve bred for yourself. It feels like this is the true battle even after the blades and the guns and the final defeat. He’s still dangerous even as a memory.

 

So, against all of your best instincts, you repeat his memory.

 

You tell your advisors, and though for as concerned and almost scared as they look, they understand. You tell your lover in more detail, though they hold you tight and cry and tell you that they’ll be there through it all. You speak openly about the man Valkorion was, not just the image that he wrought of himself for others, but the true man, the one who manipulated and cursed and pretended. You tell. And you even tell of the moments where he was, perhaps to you, even  _ fair _ . You know you cannot purge this trauma, this grief, if you tell it dishonestly.

 

And he  _ hates _ it.

 

He wants you to curl up and give in. He wants you to become a ghost of who you once were, somebody mired down by hate and anger and disease. He wants you to sink to his level, he wants you to feel  _ miserable _ . And you refuse.

 

You refuse.

 

You  _ refuse _ .

 

And as the years pass, his shadow becomes a little dimmer. His presence feels less foreboding, as if he’s retreating from his perch behind your shoulder. And though there are nights where he still controls the nightmares, nights where you dream of  _ him _ and  _ everything he did to you _ , you wake up, and you get up, and you don’t let it destroy you. Valkorion was never allowed the chance to truly destroy you, not when he was an entity of his own, so why should you let this fog of him do it now?

 

And one day, all it takes is a kind word. A smile. And you can feel the little shreds of his mist, the little shadows of him that remain . . . 

 

Disperse.

 

And then you smile for real, because you know you have defeated the demon, because you’d understood for so long now that purging the demon wasn’t a task done in blades and in escalated moments of freedom.

 

The relief came in the quiet moments of your mind, where he offered you the hand to sink back down, and you refused.


End file.
